One and Only: The Untold Story of On the Road and LuAnne Henderson, the Woman Who Started Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady on Their Journey

Table of Contents

Title Page

Praise

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

NOTE TO THE TRANSCRIPTION

Interview with Lu Anne

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

PART FOUR

PART FIVE

PART SIX

Lu Anne’s Role in Beat History / Cultural History

Al Hinkle’s Story

Letter to Neal

A Daughter’s Recollection

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Copyright Page

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR ONE AND ONLY

"One and Only is essential reading for anyone wishing to get the full picture of the Beat Generation. Lu Anne Henderson was Neal Cassady’s lifelong love and was responsible for the friendship with Kerouac that gave us On the Road. Gerald Nicosia was always a loyal advocate of the women of the Beat Generation, and his remarkable interview with Lu Anne fills in an enormous gap in the story. It shows the vulnerability and insecurities of the main characters, and reveals the chaos of their emotional lives so that Kerouac and company finally emerge as real people! A great book."

—Barry Miles, author of Jack Kerouac: King of the Beats

"Gerald Nicosia is Kerouac’s best biographer. Critics unanimously praised Memory Babe for its honesty, its broad, deep research, its narrative style, and its respect for and understanding of Jack Kerouac. Now he gives us a different kind of book in One and Only. I am fascinated by characters in fiction who live outside of the book and confront us in real life. Nicosia found Lu Anne Henderson and listened to her voice with great care. He’s written the context, made room so that she can tell her truth about On the Road. We go again but differently on that mythic road with Jack and Neal."

—Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Woman Warrior

"One and Only is an ongoing chapter in the riveting Beat saga, chronicling another life and its poignant hopes and fears. An unsung teen-heroine of the time, Lu Anne Henderson, the young woman on whom the character ‘Marylou’ in On the Road is based, finally has her say. The book is an intimate and revealing portrait in the annals of American belletristic and real-life memory."

—Anne Waldman, author of Beats at Naropa and co-founder of

The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Naropa University

"Gerald Nicosia performs a fascinating feat of balance with One and Only. While preserving his admiration for Jack Kerouac’s writing, he explores—with the collaboration of Anne Marie Santos and the preserved words of Lu Anne Henderson—the faults of character which contribute to an ambiguous cult status for Jack Kerouac and his beau ideal, Neal Cassady. The book is a most valuable addition to Kerouaciana and the legend of Neal Cassady. It also gives Lu Anne a place she deserves, and has not gotten from others."

—Herbert Gold, author of Bohemia

"It takes a Zen-like skill to tightrope-walk the 60 years of complexity and rumor that lay across Beat legends Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady. Gerald Nicosia effortlessly performs the feat using his interviews with Cassady’s first wife, Lu Anne, as his point of entry. Nicosia has a historian’s vision that generously accommodates the ambivalences and Rashomon quality of memory. With a breezy and genuine beatitude, Nicosia renders the pre-On the Road Beat world with an admiration that doesn’t discount its occasional irony and fraud. One and Only is a book of masterful craft subversively camouflaged as coolly minimal in which the sophisticated tricks of the trade of fiction are used to tell a real story."

—Kate Braverman, author of

Lithium for Medea, Palm Latitudes, and Squandering the Blue

"This is the missing back-story of the back-story of On the Road, the mysterious missing woman a lot of us sensed was there but invisible and silent. Until now. Nicosia has given her voice and made her visible, and she’s extraordinary. No wonder both Kerouac and Cassady loved her."

—Russell Banks, author of Cloudsplitter

"Gerald Nicosia has done it again! He just keeps filling in the pieces of the Beat era for us. One and Only fleshes out the beginnings of On the Road and makes it fuller and more interesting. Lu Anne was certainly a force to be reckoned with. Her lust for life and fullness of being and generosity of spirit show through only too clearly. Her vital North Beach career, her mothering ability, her recovery from heroin addiction, her many marriages, her long clandestine affair with Neal, and her own longevity speak well for her love affair with life as well as with Neal. And her demand for a ‘broad margin to her life,’ showing she had ‘as much right to go through every open door as a man had,’ will strike many women as apt in their own lives. By the 60s, a number of us followed her. I read One and Only from cover to cover in one day, and Lu Anne’s presence hovers with me still."

—Joanna McClure, original Beat poet, author of Extended Love Poem

"I read One and Only straight through and loved it, and loved the energy that was put into it. Lu Anne, much ignored by most of the biographers except Nicosia, finally comes across as a vital part of the Beat Generation. His new book is an informative and moving portrait of a girl who was really a lady, and lets us see once again how strong was the influence of womanhood on the major Beats, both negative and positive. One and Only is must reading and fills in many gaps. It will become an essential part of the Beat canon."

—Jerry Kamstra, original Beat poet, author of The Frisco Kid

"Gerry Nicosia is to the Beat Generation what Alan Lomax was to the history of the blues, the voice-catcher of his generation. In One and Only, written in collaboration with Anne Marie Santos, Nicosia reveals the story behind the story of the great American epic, On the Road, which is to say he uncovers one of its deeply buried secrets. Every myth has one, and the great unknown force that brought Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady together is revealed here for the first time in the vivacious voice of the vixen Lu Anne Henderson. Reading her story is like riding with her in the backseat on one of those long, bluesy romps across the great heartland. Go, go, go..."

—Phil Cousineau, author of Wordcatcher and The Book of Roads

"The voice of Lu Anne Henderson rises up off the page in this tender yet psychologically acute memoir, transcribed by Gerald Nicosia from tapes he made thirty years ago. Henderson played a crucial, inspirational part in the lives of Cassady and Kerouac, and the true circumstances of their complex relationship are revealed here for the first time. One and Only also shows the poverty and chaos and sometimes the sheer scariness of the lives of the Beats. Above all, the book shows the vulnerability and lack of self-esteem, the confusion and jealousy, which lay behind Cassady and Kerouac’s machismo. Henderson’s crucial insight is that Cassady and Kerouac, despite their profound friendship, were ‘totally unaware of the other one’s real feelings,’ a situation which only got worse when they became cultural icons. This new book by Nicosia is an invaluable contribution to Beat history."

—Ian MacFadyen, editor of Naked Lunch at 50: Anniversary Essays

"What a great and important find: Lu Anne Henderson, aka Marylou of On the Road. Neglected by most of the scholarship, she put Jack and Neal together, is at the core of the movement that changed history, both literary and cultural history. But only Eastern establishment scholars and male-identified fans could be stunned by her. For Westerners, childhood was full of such women—the mothers we grew from. Henderson’s authenticity is no surprise—is relief, joy, and truth. We owe thanks to Gerald Nicosia for the interestingly-crafted One and Only, a sweet book and a delightful, beautiful story that can never again be ignored."

—Sharon Doubiago, author of Love on the Streets

"In One and Only, Gerald Nicosia is a man burning with a story to tell like no other told before: the true story of the pre-legendary men and women upon whom the classic postwar novel On the Road’s characters were modeled. Nicosia’s sturdily edited portrait of Lu Anne Henderson from lengthy taped interviews and his dramatic and accurate narration of Lu Anne’s life amongst the ur-Beats and thereafter, with the help of her daughter Anne Santos, bring to light as never before the human dimensions of those lives before they were iconic. Lu Anne’s life was not about Neal Cassady or Kerouac or any of them; her story is her humanity. Now, with Gerald Nicosia’s One and Only, a master of living Beat history has brought to life for the first time a ‘Beat woman’ who was a woman, first of all."

—James Grauerholz, editor of

Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader

"Just as the Beats were the missing link between the bohemians and the hippies, so was lovely Lu Anne the missing link between Cassady and Kerouac. In this book, she reveals how they played the roles that were expected of them, and then expected by themselves, until finally their roles began to play them. Gerald Nicosia provides a backstage pass to a unique era of foibles and follies that range from poignant to preposterous, so that One and Only does indeed live up to its name."

—Paul Krassner, author of Confessions of a Raving,

Unconfined Nut : Misadventures in the Counterculture

"I always sensed Lu Anne was Neal’s real sweetheart. He always had a special look on his face when he mouthed her name. Having been an intimate of major players in that generation, I am drawn to anecdotal, primary narratives like One and Only. For me, they’re more interesting than the fictions like On the Road. One and Only reveals a good deal about the gene pool in that fabulous era. In Lu Anne’s life, as in the larger culture, cool changed from hep to hip. This book reveals the spark, in flesh, of another holder of the flame."

—Charles Plymell, author of

The Last of the Moccasins and friend of Neal Cassady

"One and Only is an essential addition and corrective to the masculine locus of Beat Generation history. Lu Anne Henderson was a witness and participant in the legendary road trips and saw Neal Cassady, Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs in a clear-headed light. Nicosia’s reclamation of her centrality to that experience is revelatory. Her testimony captures her complicated involvement with these men with clarity, compassion, and wise humor. This book is a necessary revelation of the female experience in postwar United States, not to mention the incredible story and insights into the times covered by On the Road and also the period afterward."

—David Meltzer, original Beat poet, author of

San Francisco Beats: Talking with the Poets

"There have always been great women behind the important men of our collective literary existence. Lu Anne Henderson (Cassady) was the apocalyptic spark behind the rowdy duo of Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady. According to the new book One and Only by Gerald Nicosia, a vital addition to the historical archives of Beat consciousness, Neal and Jack didn’t get along with each other before Lu Anne connected them. Nicosia, one of our most important Beat chroniclers, here delves into places other researchers have left untouched. One and Only exposes the liveliness and magnetic charms of a beautiful woman with a beautiful soul, who led a fascinating yet problematic life."

—Tony Rodriguez, author of When I Followed the Elephant

"In One and Only, Gerald Nicosia treats Jack Kerouac with the respect he has always shown for this great writer, just as he has always been a friend and supporter of the real Kerouac family. It’s an extremely well-done book, in which we see the On the Road story through other people’s eyes, in a way that is sometimes painful and sometimes humorous, but always definitely real. In Jack Kerouac’s own spirit, Nicosia gives us the full, no-holds-barred telling of a story we only heard parts of before."

—Paul Blake, Jr., Jack Kerouac’s nephew

To my very own Doris Day

Mother, I love you. Que sera, sera.

—A.M.S.

To Sylvia Anna Fremer Nicosia,

known as San,

and all the mothers who try to make

a better world for their children

—G.N.

We’ll be together, you are my one and only wife.

—Neal Cassady to Lu Anne Cassady

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Of course, my first thanks go out to the spirit of Lu Anne Henderson Cassady. If she hadn’t granted me those two interviews, neither this book nor a whole lot else would exist. Thanks of course to Larry Lee, too, another angel who got his wings the hard way. It was Larry’s act of kindness in sharing Lu Anne’s whereabouts with me that opened the door for me with her in the first place. A big thanks to Walter Salles and the entire cast and crew of the movie On the Road. If Walter hadn’t asked me to be part of the initial work on that film, I would not have listened again to that full seven-and-a-half-hour taped interview, which had been locked up in an archive in Lowell, Massachusetts, for many years, beyond everyone’s reach. My work as an advisor to Walter and other crew members, especially Kristen Stewart, Sam Riley, and Garrett Hedlund, helped me focus my own thoughts about Lu Anne.

There is no way I can adequately express my enormous debt to Lu Anne’s daughter, Anne Marie Santos, who allowed me to put my brief experience with Lu Anne in a far larger and longer context. By the same token, I have to thank Al Hinkle and his daughter Dawn Hinkle Davis for their great generosity in sharing stories that added vastly to the richness of the narrative. My editor and publisher, Brenda Knight, was a sine qua non of this project, as were the core staff members of Cleis Press and its co-publishers Felice Newman and Frédérique Delacoste. Thanks to so many others who contributed photographs and other key pieces of the puzzle—including, especially, photographers Jerry Bauer, James Oliver Mitchell, and Larry Keenan, Jr., who by themselves and on little funding documented a wide swath of America’s germinating counterculture. Thanks to my family, of course—Ellen, Amy, and Peter—for support and patience during my work on the book. And thanks most of all to the angelic spirits of Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady—not for getting us all into this mess, but for showing us the beginning of a way out. Pax vobiscum to that whole ragtag bunch called the Beat Generation.

—G.N.

First thank-you goes to Gerry Nicosia for reaching out to me and guiding me through this amazing experience.

To Brenda Knight and all those at Cleis Press and Viva Editions who believed in this project.

Thank you to my love Reuben (TT&F), to Katie, Erin, Mason, and Mia, without whom I could not exist.

To all the women in my family who came before, onward we go.

Most importantly, to Mother and my daughter Melissa, the bravest and most loving of women, and I was the lucky one loved by both. Thank you.

—Annie Ree

PREFACE TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION

INSIDE ON THE ROAD

As I enter the bar of the St.-Sulpice Hôtel in Montreal I feel a very tall presence behind me and a pair of hands grabbing my shoulders.

Would you like to join us? Sam Riley asks. He leads me behind an opaque vinyl drape—ostensibly being used to keep the summer air conditioning in the bar area, which opens into the garden, but the actors from On the Road are using it to keep themselves hidden from the other people in the bar. Heretofore, I have not spent a lot of time with actors, at least in public places, but I’m quickly learning that being spotted is about as happy an occurrence for an actor as it is for the fox being chased by a pack of hounds.

As I sit down next to Sam, I notice the tabletop in front of him and Garrett Hedlund is filled with empty glasses—apparently, the boys have been doing some serious drinking. Garrett, who loves to talk anywhere and everywhere, is telling a story to Kristen Stewart, who sits across the aisle. Looking almost anorexically thin, she’s dressed in a black T-shirt, tight black jeans, and her nails are painted black too—but her thick hair is uncharacteristically bright, a sort of brassy, orangish gold. On her thumb is a silver ring shaped like a snake.

Gerald Nicosia and Kristen Stewart at the private party after the premiere of On the Road in Cannes, May 23, 2012. (Photo by Noémie Sornet.)

Garrett’s story is about one of his jobs as a teenager on his father’s farm in Minnesota: killing gophers. Standing up—like Sam, he’s well over six feet—he demonstrates how he would ram a post down section after section of their tunnel, till he finally cornered the unlucky gopher in the back of its hole. Then he shows how he would force it into his trap and break its neck. The last step was cutting off its front paws.

The type of gopher the state paid two dollars for killing had paws like mitts, he explains, so we’d save up bags of gopher paws in our meat freezer, till it was time to take them into the county to get paid.

It was clear he was trying to gross out Kristen—it might even have been a form of flirting—but it wasn’t working. I learned very quickly that nothing—no tale, however horrible—could faze her. It was as if she expected darkness everywhere, and was not surprised when it appeared in her life.

It was July of 2010, and I had been brought to Montreal by Walter Salles and his producers at MK2, the French company that finally bankrolled the movie of On the Road after every American company had turned it down. My job was to be the first drill instructor at Beat Boot Camp, which was Walter’s idea as a way to drag his twenty-something actors back about five decades in less than two weeks. During the day, in a big, rehabbed loft in the area of Montreal known as the Plateau, I told stories, played tapes and showed films, and answered the hundreds of questions put to me, sometimes one-on-one, and sometimes at a round table with more than 30 people gathered around me. But the real learning on both sides—mine and theirs—I discovered, took place when we just hung out at places like the St.-Sulpice bar.

Jack Kerouac liked to tell people that On the Road had been written in three weeks, but we now know that it was the product of almost a decade of multiple, quite different drafts, multiple revisions, and sometimes last-minute inserts that would change the whole tenor of the story—as it moved from complete fiction to near-complete realism and then back to a kind of poetic, visionary semi-fiction. In a similar way, Walter Salles’s On the Road was the product of a complex, many-layered process which took over seven years to complete. But the whole process of getting the book on film had actually taken more like four decades.

Back in 1975, the writer Martin Duberman had approached Stella Sampas, Jack Kerouac’s widow, to option the dramatic rights to Kerouac’s works, including On the Road. (We now know that Stella had obtained those rights through a forged will, but that’s a story for another time.) Duberman used the rights to publish a play he’d written called Visions of Kerouac in 1977. The next year, he went back to Stella to specifically option the movie rights to On the Road. Between 1978 and 1980, something went wrong between Duberman and Stella. It’s only my guess, but she probably didn’t like the slant of his play, which posited that Jack and Neal were gay lovers. In 1980, Francis Ford Coppola’s company American Zoetrope bought out Duberman’s contract with Stella, giving Coppola the right to make a movie of On the Road. Then a whole new saga began.

Over a period of 25 years, Coppola hired (and paid) a long succession of writers to try their hand at writing a film script of On the Road—the list included such distinguished names as Michael Herr, Russell Banks, Barry Gifford, and even his own son Roman Coppola. Every script that was turned in landed quickly in the garbage can, and by 2004 Coppola had pretty much concluded that On the Road could not be adapted to film. Then in January 2004, Coppola saw Walter Salles’s award-winning movie The Motorcycle Diaries at the Sundance Film Festival, where it received a standing ovation. Rumor has it that Coppola said something like, If he can do motorcycles, he can do cars too. Soon afterward, Coppola turned over the movie rights to On